By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Jan. 27, 2024
On Nov. 22, 1985, the Stanford women’s basketball team traveled to nearby San Jose to tip off the 1985–86 season with a two-day tournament. The Cardinal had finished the previous season on an 11-game skid, compiling a 9-19 tally for their second straight losing campaign. But the team had changed coaches, so there was at least a glimmer of hope for the future.
The team’s new leader was named Tara VanDerveer. A 32-year-old Indiana University graduate, VanDerveer had amassed a 152-51 record over seven seasons as head coach at first the University of Idaho and then Ohio State University. The Boston native had claimed at least a share of the Big 10 title in her final three seasons for the Buckeyes, leading the squad to the Elite Eight of the 1985 NCAA tournament. But the Ohio State athletic department was reluctant to pay for the equipment VanDerveer wanted, including sneakers and even basketballs in numbers she felt were necessary for an entire season of practice and play. And so VanDerveer, who grew up in Upstate New York, had interviewed for other jobs and been hired by Andy Geiger, then the athletic director on the Farm.
In her first game at Stanford, VanDerveer’s team claimed a 68-65 victory over Hawaii. The squad lost three of its next four games before seeming to find its stride with a seven-game victory streak bridging December and January. But the team faltered as 1986 wore on, losing 11 in a row over a month-long stretch that lasted into late February. Two victories in March weren’t enough to salvage the season, which ended on March 8 with a 75-59 home loss to Arizona. Final record: 13-15, including a 1-7 mark in Stanford’s sole season in the Pac-West conference.
The next year, VanDerveer’s club went 14-14, finishing in sixth place in the Pac-10 with an 8-10 conference record. The team only improved from there. The 1987-88 season saw the Cardinal go 27-5, climbing to fourth place in the Pac-10 with a 14-4 tally. The campaign ended with a loss to Texas in the Midwest Regional semifinal in a game hosted by the Longhorns. Stanford wound up ranked in the top 15 by both the Associated Press and USA Today, the squad’s first time concluding the season with an appearance in either poll. (The USA Today poll was then in its third year, but the AP list dated back to 1976-77, per Stanford records.)
In 1988-89, the Cardinal had an unblemished 18-0 run through the Pac-10 and went to the Midwest Regional final. Stanford lost that game to No. 3/4 Louisiana Tech, which was hosting the regional in Ruston, La. The 10-point loss to the Lady Techsters was only the Cardinal’s third of the year, against 28 victories.
That was probably the last season that any women’s basketball aficionado of any sophistication would be unable to identify Tara VanDerveer. The 1989-90 Cardinal went 32-1 year en route to the program’s first national championship. The club averaged 92.8 points, 43 rebounds and 23 assists per game, taking its only loss in an 81-78 decision at No. 7/8 Washington. (Stanford’s 1989-90 scoring average set a school record that still stands after more than three decades.)
Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Lady Vols thwarted the Cardinal’s attempt to win a second consecutive title when the two teams met in the 1991 Final Four in New Orleans, but the Cardinal claimed two out of three crowns with a 30-3 squad that won the 1992 national championship in Los Angeles.
VanDerveer’s squads would win at least 21 games a season for every year from 1987-88 through 1997-98. Outside of her first season on the Farm, VanDerveer hasn’t had a losing record. The club won at least a share of the regular-season conference title 23 times over the 26-year span from 1988-89 through 2013-14, including the first 14 years of the 21st century. (Bear in mind that 1999-2000 was the final year of the 20th century, mathematically speaking, since there is no Year 0 in the calendar.)
As the game has evolved over the years, VanDerveer has remained a fixture on the national scene, and her presence at Stanford has been a near constant. In nearly four decades, she stepped away from her post at the Farm for only a single extended period. In 1995, VanDerveer accepted a post as head coach of the U.S. women’s national basketball team. She led the squad to a perfect record in a 52-game international exhibition schedule before guiding her American all-stars to an 8-0 mark and a gold medal. The national team generated such enthusiasm for women’s basketball that two professional women’s hoops leagues formed in the months after the Atlanta Olympics: The American Basketball League, an independent circuit that folded after two seasons, and the Women’s National Basketball Association, or WNBA, which debuted in 1997 and has successfully carried the women’s basketball torch to this day.
The Cardinal’s caretaker coaches that year were Amy Tucker, VanDerveer’s longtime associate head coach, and Marianne Stanley, a pioneering coach in her own right. The duo led Stanford to a 29-3 record and a Final Four appearance.
When VanDerveer returned to the Farm, she picked up right where she left off. The Cardinal went 34-2 (then a program record for season wins), recorded its second straight 18-0 record in the Pac-10 and earned a third consecutive Final Four trip.
That would be Stanford’s last time advancing to the national championship semifinals for a decade. But even over a 10-year interregnum, the Cardinal’s worst record was 18-12 (.600) in 1998-99. This was and remains the Cardinal‘s lowest winning percentage since going .500 in VanDerveer’s sophomore Stanford campaign. The third-place conference finish that year (with a 14-4 record) would be the lone occasion Stanford failed to finish first or second between ’87-’88 and 2014-15. The only other time Stanford failed to win at least 21 games since 1986-87 was 2000-01, when the team was 19-11.
All of this adds up to a lot of winning — a whole lot of winning. VanDerveer broke Summitt’s all-time women’s college basketball record for coaching wins in December 2020, when the Cardinal dean earned her 1,098th victory. The following spring, VanDerveer reached the peak of college basketball, winning her third national championship in front of a small audience of player relatives in San Antonio, Texas. She had coached 28 NCAA seasons and one Olympic squad between her 1992 and 2021 trophy-winning campaigns.
VanDerveer made the news this month for a similarly historic occasion. On Sunday, Jan. 21, Kiki Iriafen scored a career-high 36 points and took down 12 boards in leading the Cardinal to a 65-56 home victory over visiting Oregon State. The victory, which came with star center Cameron Brink sitting out as a precaution, was VanDerveer’s 1,203rd triumph, pushing her past longtime Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski for the most wins by any NCAA basketball coach. VanDerveer’s longevity, adaptability, hard work and connection with literally generations of smart, gifted basketball players had driven her to a singular honor.
After the game, Stanford’s athletics department staged a ceremony featuring several former players. Broadcaster Ros Gold-Onwude served as master of ceremonies, leading a conversation with star guard Jennifer Azzi, a mainstay of Stanford’s 1990 championship team, and Chiney Ogwumike, one of several talented Stanford players who never claimed an NCAA title but is now a professional WNBA player and broadcaster in her own right. VanDerveer was presented with a basketball jersey bearing her name and the number 1203 and a custom jacket featuring a tally of every single one of her record-breaking wins. Fans waved 1,203 red lights, a celebratory video was played and the Maples Pavilion display showed congratulatory messages from Krzyzewski, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, pioneering women’s tennis player Billie Jean King and others.
The game was broadcast by the Pac-12 Network, which carried the postgame ceremony in full. When the former players spoke, they shared their tremendous affection and admiration for VanDerveer. When the coach herself spoke, she expressed her affection for her players and a real sense of graciousness and humility for being a position to win hundreds of basketball games.
VanDerveer was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Since then, she’s added a national title and two record-setting accomplishments to her resume. As an avid Stanford fan, I hope that she and her team have a few more celebrations in store this season and perhaps in future seasons to come.
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